September is National Suicide Prevention Month. There’s an Interesting question when it comes to world of mental health advocacy – How broad is this topic? How wide, & how involved does one get when discussing all the possible impacts?
It’s often that our own lived experiences, or those of our friends/family, dictate where we focus our attention.
Candidly, when I got in this space, after beginning the recovery from my own MH crash for 2.5yrs, even as someone who didn’t love labels, & hoped to help create a more inclusive global discussion arnd this topic, I fell into the trap of believing: Suicide Prevention isn’t for me to discuss. That’s the heaviest of the topics. It sits by itself & is to be discussed by those who’ve attempted & survived.
Mind you, I had experienced INTENSE ideations that felt like they came out of “nowhere” that sent me to the psych ward for 5 wks to be told ECT was my “last resort,” but yet, I STILL didn’t think the topic was for me, bc I hadnt ever attempted.
As we talk abt a lot now in this group, despite what society tells us, & how it’s marketed & even sold to us differently: “MH, addiction, overdose, suicide – are ALL cousins living in the same house.” They all have the commonality of emotional pain that underly them.
We get so caught up in comparisons – that we lose the forest for the trees. Suicide is the FAR end of that emotional pain continuum. It’s a continuum we are ALL on, & all susceptible to. As you’ll see in the stats on these slides➡️ suicide is most often an impulsive action based on the build-up or chronic stress & trauma, causing error msgs of self-harm. It is most often NOT a conscious/rational decision or choice the way it’s been depicted for too long.
Just like we teach positive plans of action for feelings of a heart attack, & fire safety, we NEED to teach first-person suicide prevention safety plans. The LIFE Saver tool (slides➡️) is an example of that. @kevinhinesstory portion of the free video is in the slides & I’ll post the link to the full video in Stories. We want YOU here. We want ALL of you, here. Let’s work on this, together.